He hastened back home, and was surprised to find that Mrs. Thrall had already breakfasted in her own room. He would have been more surprised had he known that her quick ears had heard and her pale eyes had watched his early departure, and that the suspicion it had aroused in her mind would add much to the difficulties of the interview he sought. For what he had to face, he faced without hesitation or delay.
Stewart Thrall's knowledge of feminine character was considerable, yet it was neither deep nor thorough—it was superficial. He understood the tastes, the fancies, the caprices of women; he was a past-master in delicate flattery; he was quick to recognize the almost unconscious pose of a pretty woman. Was she literary, he was earnest and intellectual and quoted her favorite poet; was she artistic, he straightway saw in her the potential painter, only handicapped by circumstance; while, if she were simply coquettish, he was indeed upon solid ground. Women loved to be appreciated; he not only accepted them at their own valuation, but added something to the appraisement. What wonder, then, that he thought of them as conceited, vain, full of pride, without merit? But even what knowledge he had was to-day useless and unavailing, for there was probably no woman in the world so hopelessly incomprehensible to him as this chill, ashen-blonde creature, whom he had called his wife these twelve years past, though she remained abroad so long at a time for her health (which was perfect) that other people almost forgot he was a Benedick. Save in the theatre one never heard her mentioned. Long ago, a low-class English servant had habitually referred to her as the "Missus," and with gleeful unanimity the actors adopted the title, and thus Sybil remained all ignorant that behind the screening nickname of the "Missus" stood a secure and dominant Mrs. Stewart Thrall.
The pair, who had been talking long, were sitting facing each other. The table between them had a dish of half-dead ferns in a handsome receptacle. Though meant for ornament, they were sadder even than the paper-dry, stick-dead contents of the window jardinière, for they at least no longer struggled, no longer suffered for loving care. Stewart had remarked apropos of their condition: "You see they have felt your absence, Lettice?"
And she had given the little downward pull to the corners of her mouth that always made him wince, and answered: "But you were never looking better or younger in your life than"—(she glanced at his thin, pale, anxious face, and significantly finished)—"than you were yesterday."
There was a litter, too, of Sunday papers, a Tauchnitz novel, and writing materials keeping the dead ferns company, and now, in the pause that was lengthening out between them, he carefully piled up the pencils and penholders, building and unbuilding pens, some square, some three-cornered, while all the time the ash-blonde woman opposite sat steady, self-contained; and, though her satirical lightness of manner was changing fast into a sullen anger that settled heavily about her lips and clouded her brow, her hands yet rested quietly in her lap, while her cold eyes watched the man she wondered at not a little—for he was changed. Heretofore, innuendoes had ever had power to drive him to hot rage, to-day his tolerance might have passed for indifference, but for the quick trembling of those ever-building fingers.
She told him of the anonymous letters that had convinced her that he was making a fool of himself, publicly enough, to endanger her dignity as a wife, and so——
"And so," he interrupted, "you broke faith with me on the strength of an anonymous lie? You have returned, not to find the scandal in existence, but to learn that your presence here makes life much harder for us both. You must feel proud to know that a creature like Manice has used you so easily!"
"Almost as proud as you must be to recall certain love passages between you," retorted Lettice.
"Pardon me, one cannot 'recall' what has never existed. I have even yet a little respect for the word and the sentiment of love, and would never think of casting such pearls into the Manice trough!"
"You are so remarkably frank about this malicious young person, perhaps you will be equally so about this rare conservatory blossom—this quite wonderful Juliet, this new 'chère amie'? Oh, you can't deny—save to the blind—your infatuation for her! Admitting that you have had so far an eye to appearances, that no open scandal is yet afoot, it is still plain to all that you love her! Silence? That's odd—from you! Does she understand how she is honored? Have you acquainted her with the number she should wear upon her breast? Don't break that holder! What creatures men are! Deception, ingratitude, and treachery were your very wedding-gifts to me. Disloyalty has long become a habit with you."